Terror Incitement Account Libs of Tik Tok Banned From Facebook
The social media accounts run by Chaya Raichik are notorious for picking targets for violent domestic terror actors again and again, but Raichik won’t be doing so on Facebook, at least for now.
by Alyssa Steinsiek
Ding-dong, the witch is dead!
Which old witch?
The Wicked Witch, Chaya Raichik!
Believe it or not, our least favorite Wicked Witch of the world wide web, Chaya Raichik—better known by her mean-spirited social media moniker, Libs of TikTok—has been banned from Facebook for “going against” their “community standards.” In classic Terms of Service violation style, Facebook didn’t single out any post(s) in particular as being reprehensible enough to warrant banning Libs of TikTok entirely, but… does it really matter?
We’re talking about a social media personality with a very troubled history, after all.
Responsible for countless tweets that just so happen to immediately precede bomb threats, threats of violence against queer people, and at least one mass shooting, Raichik has happily embraced accusations from her many critics of engaging in stochastic terrorism, defined by Dictionary.com as, “the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.”
In fact, Raichik has gone so far as to pose for a picture, cheesing those pearly whites for the whole world to see, while holding up a USA Today paper with a front page headline calling out the undeniable pattern of threats and harassment that follow any public posts she makes.
I don’t know if “no publicity is bad publicity” rings true, here. Personally, I would rather not be credibly accused of fostering violence against marginalized people. Maybe that’s just me!
Will Carless, the author of that USA Today article, has said that Raichik told him she “[condemns] any threats” made on behalf of Libs of TikTok. I find it hard to believe she’s telling the truth there, considering how consistently she’s targeted queer people and any institutions that support them since her account’s inception in 2021, and how glibly she responds to accusations of culpability in the harm that she perpetuates through her audience.
Raichik has even beefed with the Anti-Defamation League after being included in their “Glossary of Extremism.” Of course, after Raichik threatened to litigate, the ADL quickly and quietly removed her from their list of extremists in a highly precedented and utterly unexpected act of cowardice.
We should keep in mind, however, that this isn’t the first time Libs of TikTok has been banned from Facebook. In August of last year, the Libs of TikTok Facebook account was banned for the exact same reason, and Raichik was informed by Facebook’s moderation team that the ban was permanent… but of course, it was eventually lifted. Frustrating though it may be, I wouldn’t expect the latest ban to stick any better than the first did.
On the bright side, she remains permanently banned on TikTok! I can’t help but giggle at the thought that Raichik has to scrape content from the website on a personal account because they won’t let her pernicious harassment account back on the platform.
After Raichik tweeted about the banned Facebook account on Twitter (formerly 𝕏), a whole slew of migraine inducing conservative dweebs turned up to talk about how Orwellian and evil this vile censorship is. If there’s anything these people are winners at, it’s publicly lamenting the consequences of their shitty actions.
My favorite response is from Not the Bee, sister site to unfunny Christian political satire website The Babylon Bee.
“... our Facebook pages are always one breath away from the same fate,” is so deeply melodramatic that I can’t help but imagine these people cowering in trenches. It must feel amazing to pretend people are out to get you instead of, you know, people actually being out to get you.
I guess life is, at its core, sort of a weird uphill battle with the concept of impermanence. So maybe Libs of TikTok’s Facebook account won’t stay banned forever. Maybe she’ll carry on spewing bile onto a massive, eager audience on Twitter (formerly 𝕏) for years to come, endangering whoever she pleases with harmful rhetoric directing the hatred of nearly three million angry people at marginalized folks all over America.
At the very least, I can hope for a happy new year with just a little less Chaya Raichik on the net.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a professional writer and video games nerd who hails from Appalachia but lives, laughs, loves in Rapid City.